phoenix214

I feel pass is too light, so either 3S or 3C. The bid although more depends on how optimistic i feel but in my opinion is it is close between these two, although 3C could be a strech.

Im not sure if im home today that time - but if you plan to repeat I would definitely want to join.

Am I the only person who likes the new hunter 2/1 they teased? 2/1 1 mana, inspire if 0 hand, and you hero power, deal additional 2 damage. The 0 hand hunter seems like a pretty interesting deck to play - but it will take some ages for it to become viable as it needs more cards to benefit from 0 hand.

I would suggest you sticking to landy - I do not like multi landy that much - it is basically the same discussion as playing a multi opening - if you like it, then sure, but if you do not, then there is 0 point to it. Simple Landy with pen X is good enough, vs a weak NT. Personally vs strong NT I play a form of Meckwell: X - Majors(normal meckwell includes singlesuited minor as well) 2 minor - minor + major 2 major - natural This is pretty simple, and gives you enough to compete.

I have been toying around with this idea over 1M openings - 1♥-(2♦): X - normal ♥ raise(this can have other hand types as well, like a force with 4 spades for example) 2♥ - about 9-11 with 3♥ or 7-9 with 4♥ Similar over 1♠. The idea is that we are not forced to bid to level 3 with the limit raise hands and can play in 2M, because pd can open on some lousy hands. The 2M is basically like Drury.

Oh that is cool - we managed to play old fun hands, thanks for hosting! :)

That works for me

You guys can decide how to pair up - i will not be angry, if im left out as i played yesterday.

In case you do not find anybody else, im willing to play

I think you have too many responses focused on the minors - and the 1D/1H responses might have some hands too much. I acutally decided to make a weird twist in the response scheme i played over 1C to help with memory issues. At least they seem to work - the idea is borrowed from Ambra and Fantunes - that is using 2♦ and 2♥ as hearts and spades. These transfers promise a) a weak jump shift in the suit b) a game going hand with atleast 5+ The idea is to simplify the auctions over transfer walsh on the first go. I know you can use checkback and or what not but this simplifies these auctions. This is how Fantunes have their responses over 1C as well(they have 2M as natural 5+ and GF, so this is a small modification). Now going back to the original problem - in the given situation just use the cheapest suit as some sort of force or keep it natural. It is simpler. With 5-4 with the proposed changed you would start 1C-2H, 2S-3H showing 5-4 and game going - not perfect but simple. If you have a strong hand - I think you can still find the clubs. As for one more - i do think your 1S is underused. You can add some hand types there.

What are all your responses to 1C - out of curiosity?

Well you have the space to assign you get. Over 1C-1S(not defined)-2C, now you have a million forcing bids available to add some definition - so you can find a fit there -(you can agree on clubs as trumps searching for slam at the level of 3C) Since responder does not have majors and opener does not have majors - then they rate to have a minor fit. You can have a bid such as 2D or 2H as a force to check what partner has or to use it as some puppet. Over 1C-1S 2D(strong balanced... TO SAVE SPACE) you can practically again have the same method of asking. Obviously this might be too difficult to remember so there might be better alternatives.

As for the 1♠ response over 1♣: In general - does it make any sense for it to show any minor suit? If it promises 4+ in a minor: Are we motivated for some reason to play there? If we have a 4-4 fit, in matchpoints we want to play 1N anyway - in IMPs - not that close - but some of the field is going to be in 1NT anyway - and are we that sure that the suit is better then NT. Also if we have a minor fit - will we ever be able to play 2 minor? Most good players wont let you do that anyway - but there is a higher chance that they will let you play 1NT. So in that case - there are 2 alternatives for 1♠ response that seem to be reasonable: a) Use it a weak hand w.o interest for major suits or some strong options(maybe both minors). over this 1NT - minimum balanced, 2C - unbalanced with clubs(no interest for 1NT) 2D - strong balanced 1C-1S-1N, 2C Both minors and a weak hand for example Here 1NT is usable as a clubs, or as INV to 3NT. An interesting thing is that looking at Kokish-Kraft, for example. In their system 1C-1NT is 8-10 bal, if you had a weaker balanced hand, you would bid it through 1D. The same idea applies here. b) Use the 1S bid as a GF relay as Auken - Welland do. This fits better in a relay type of an approach if you its your cup of tea.

Well, tavern brawl is to eveybodies own personal tastes - as i told - i do not like the deckbuilding challanges because people are pushing too much to win - if you get prebuilt deck of any form - it is way healthier. Not everybody thinks like that - because the challange might seem dull, but you can never please everybody.

The Immortal Draw game looks pretty interesting - reminds me of the Traxler counterattack - it has similar attacking lines for black.

The new tavern brawl is pretty cool! I personally hate deckbuild tavern brawls - because as in casual mode, people start to try hard to get those wins- which takes some fun off. Last weeks challenge was great - but only when I found hunter to play with. This week is way better - all random is for me personally one of the most fun ways to play with friends - and with the increased number of legendaries it makes it even better.

It looks like the latter.

Well, in you only have limited space - so you do have to give up somethings to play like this. From what it seems they give up on finding 4-4 fits, to stay a level lower with the strong balanced hand. So what are the tradeoffs. We can look at different auctions in TWalsh compared to this. Over 1♣-1♦(Hearts): We have 1NT as strong bal(same), 1♥ as weak bal(same), but when responder has a H fit we are ahead(also in comp auctions). We lose on the 5-3 fits, but we have the ability to stay on level one, and the bal hand with a good hand can raise again, so I do not think it is that bad. Over 1♣-1♥(Spade): We have basically the same pluss and minus. Over 1♣-1♠(Bal hand): Here we have a losing scenario - if partner is strong then he is forced to bid on level 2. This might turn out bad if you do not have a major, but then again we can risk a pass(Hoping that 1♣ plays better than 2NT), and opps will usually balance here, because they have major suits, and might feel that they are missing something. From what i see - there is not much upside to play this, and I would prefer to play TWalsh

Well the boards were pretty interesting - but have to admit - I hat fatigue during the match, which affected me a bit as well. Sorry for that.

If you need a player I can join in for play so that there is no need to cancel the match.

I have opened it a few times, did not notice any differance(playing good 12 to 15 NT). On one board partner over ruffed the third round of the suit in a part score, we got an above average score. The other time was on vugraph, when i had a 15 count, decided in case for comp auction, i did not want partner to lead my suit. Auction goes 1NT-(4♠), All pass, partner leads the suit anyway. http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&linurl=http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/vugraph_linfetch.php?id=34493 board 4 from the set.

Having played Mutli-Landy, Hello and Meckwell I can tell you this: I prefer Hello over Multi landy, because you can show your majors dircetly, atleast that was the reason we shifted to play that in my partnership at the time, also we kept the penalty doubles(maybe Woosley style double with 4m-5M is better, we used 2C for 5M-4m). The generic problem with Hello although is the 2 club call, and you should discuss what do other bids beside 2D mean over it, and what do you do when opponents bid. At the moment I am playing Meckwell(although we have made a simplification on it - for us double is only majors) I am actually pretty happy with the convention - you can show your majors in one bid - 2M directly or with the double, and you can enter the acution pretty well with the 2m overcalls as well, where with Multi Landy you might have problems. Over 1 club, we played Hello as well, but i really dislike the 2C overcall there, because you cant make any preemptive jumps, and because of that you might end up better not using the call. So my suggestion would be - play Meckwell, but if you have to choose between Hello or Multi-Landy, go with Hello

I would pass with the west hand - my hand is not worth that much, we might have problems making a game on power because of a lack of tricks(suits might not break well because of the preempt) - also partner will not leave them in 2H, unless he has a heart stack as well. With the E hand, Id imagine bidding a balancing double or maybe 3C in the pass out position. E double also seems a bit off,(although I have made a similar double recently, resulting in a similar result, so now i know), pd know about your hand anyway. Short hearts, likely 3 spades(would bid 3S with singleton H and 4S, or mostly with any 4S hand which is not too rubish) and 9 minors - so what do you expect to tell partner. As for the last pass, id say it is right, because partner should be a bit stronger, and because of the shape i have, id expect to take a plus in defending. Lesson that i see from the auction - you are also allowed to pass

If you see 12/13 tricks, then just shoot for NT, play in trumps if you need extra safety - that is how should it be.. [hv=pc=n&s=sak98764h3daqtct3&w=sj52h87dk9832c842&n=sq3hakqt9642djcak&e=sthj5d7654cqj9765]399|300[/hv] This is a hand i played some months ago - at the time we reached 7H, (Playing a format of minmax converting to VP) Anyhow in any form of scoring you want to be in 7NT on the hand - if you are playing MP then NT scores better then the major, if you are playing imps then you can survive some bad splits, while in a trump contract you can go down due to some ruff, or trumps splitting badly

6NT is the one where you want to be seeing both hands obviously - the problem is pretty simple, if you play a trump contract then a bad split might make you go down.6H needs hearts to split 3-2 which is 66, 6C does not need opps to have a ruff, slightly better, but if you swap the ace of clubs around, then 6C goes down as well as they can arrange a ruff. Basically we would just like to get our N clubs + other cashers. Probably a crazy suggestion, but at the point you hit slam, N should correct to 6NT - because he should be able to tell that pd has to have 3 aces(the only shortness pd is likely to have is a club one) so in that case we should hope from a double diamond stoper from pd, everything else should be covered, in the bots auction, just at the end cover to 6NT.(Although this is biased by seeing both hands)